Un-Tempo Run

OBJECTIVE
6 mi. w/ 4 mi. Tempo Run @ 7:05

ACHIEVED
WU 1 mi.; 4 mi. @ 7:17 (29:07); CD 1.13 mi.

4:57 AM 41° 76% 0 mph

I was apprehensive about this run for a couple days. It was my first effort at speed since my latest attempt at a return to fitness.

The warm up went fine. My legs felt okay and my left ITB was only hinting of any issue. The first mile of my tempo effort went fine too. I hit my time but could already feel that making it 3 more miles while holding the pace probably wasn't going to be in the cards. I thought about cutting a mile off the run but convinced myself otherwise. If I didn't hit my times at least I'd get my planned mileage for the day.

I was surprised that I held up through the second mile. The run was going better than expected and really better than I was feeling. From there, I really lost the pace. I was running in an unfamiliar area and the streets were windy-er (is that a word?) than I anticipated. I'd tried this route one time before and ended up inadvertently cutting the run short. As I floundered around - both for directions and for pace - I finally emerged from the neighborhood onto a familiar street. I'd given up on looking at my watch and just tried to press it to the end of the fourth mile. It wasn't a surprise that my overall conditioning just wasn't there but it was still disappointing. I made a good push to the end and took some consolation that I didn't cut the run short like I had considered earlier.

My splits:

7:03 / 7:07 / 7:28 / 7:29

Obviously I've got some work to do but at least I'm not starting from scratch. I finished out the run with an easy cool down mile back to the house. I'll monitor my body - primarily legs - to see how I'm feeling after this effort. There's a long run on the schedule for Saturday but I'm going to let my body "tell" me what the right thing to do is.

PRE RUN
Clif bar & water

POST RUN
SlimFast, multivitamin, & Kashi GoLean cereal w/skim milk